Kinsey Wilson

President, WordPress.com

Kinsey Wilson is President of WordPress.com. Previously, he was a digital media executive at The New York Times, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer at National Public Radio, and Executive Editor at USA Today.

Quotes

What I think you’re starting to see is the profound tension between having to produce a printed newspaper, which was designed around advertising, was meant to be relatively shallow, very broad, encompassing lots of different topics, and be of general interest to a community, versus an emerging business model that is geared to developing strong lasting relationships with members and subscribers. That requires not only a different approach to the business, but ... a kind of different approach to the journalism. And it probably means being much more selective about the kinds of things you cover, making sure that your coverage is absolutely hands down the best, that it’s indispensable to the community, not simply that it skims the surface.

I think one of the questions that gets perhaps overlooked in all of this is, inevitably we’re in a period of transition. The question really is, how much runway do publications need in order to get established, and to get to a place where a new model emerges? And that I think is a big unknown.